Rensselaer County guards allege privacy breach

A pair of Rensselaer County correction officers have filed a lawsuit accusing Sheriff Jack Mahar and other county jail officials of illegally accessing their medical records.

The jail officers, Jason Dessingue and Tamera Thomas, say their medical records were accessed after they missed work due to injuries or illness. A third plaintiff named in the federal lawsuit, Keith Hancock Jr., claims his records were improperly accessed before he was fired from his correction officer position more than two years ago.

Brendan J. Lyons reports:

It’s the second lawsuit alleging that Mahar and other jail officials improperly accessed medical records through a computer used to review inmates’ treatment histories.

Elmer Robert Keach III, an Amsterdam attorney for the plaintiffs in both lawsuits, said that Hancock, Dessingue and Thomas all were notified that their hospital records had been improperly accessed. The breaches, according to Keach, took place at different times and when the officers were facing scrutiny for attendance issues due to injuries, medical ailments or, in Hancock’s case, suspected sick-time abuse.

“There is no question in my mind that Sheriff Mahar directed that these records be accessed so that he could gain advantage over his employees either when they were sick or they got hurt on the job,” Keach said.